Location advice! Buying our first home

kishoregupta

Hi there, we are out looking for our first home! We wanted to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday but looks like we might miss the boat unless the holiday is extended. We live in Wembley at the moment, one of us work in West London and the other in Reading. We don't like where we live, we don't have kids yet. We are looking for somewhere with an easy commute to London and Reading, it's no certainty that we will be in the same jobs so want to make sure that where we choose to live would be commutable to London. I was looking along the Crossrail line from West Drayton to Burnham but Slough for the kind of reputation it gathers when you mention makes us anxious. I don't know areas and commutes in London that well to know for sure.  Our budget is 500k, Minimum of three-bed(not boxed), garden space with scope for extension or outbuilding office space. Any help and suggestion or tips to find a suitable location for us would be a huge help. I am afraid with the limited knowledge I have might end up choosing the wrong place. 
We like a quiet place but don't want to be too secluded but with easy access to public transport and amenities. Many thanks

tacpot12

Many years ago I used to live in Maidenhead, near the Furze Platt railway station. I've had a look and property around there would seem to be in your budget, and it is about 30minutes from Paddington by rail. I expect the rail service will be popular too the point of overcrowding, but others might give you an update on the situation as my information is about 25 years out of date!

Salemicus

I too was thinking Maidenhead. 

yksi

Maidenhead is lovely. You could also consider Newbury which people seem to really like. Just like you I would skip Slough! I worked in Theale and lived in Reading, it's a town close to my heart and I had neighbours who commuted to London daily. 

FTB_Help

Try Beckenham or Bromley, a 500k budget with 3 bed and garden is near impossible to find in London, so definitely the outskirts will fit. Beckenham is lovely i think its a 20ish min train to victoria or kings cross cant remember but is a youngish area lots of late 20s early 30s couples moving there.

Also Hitchin is within your budget/ specifications.

Edit ooops didnt read the part about travelling to reading, maybe scrap the areas i mentioned above, unless the reading job is a potential to change

kishoregupta

Thank you so much for all your responses. Maidenhead is how far we were prepared to go out of London but one thing that concerns me is the raising rail fare and how much it could cost to get to London if we were to commute every day for work which we don't do at the moment. Coming into London driving is not an option due to parking issues etc. 
How are areas such as West Drayton, Iver, Hayes? we don't have kids yet but we will hopefully have our family in this house, looking for an area with a good community, safety. Most of our friends live in the Northwest of London. 
We found houses that match our criteria in Hayes, Egham(not great public transport), Iver, Uxbridge, West Drayton. Just going by how we like a house to be and not the locality or etc. 

movingyear

I used to live in west drayton but , iver, Ruislip, Northwood are much nicer therefore you don’t get as much for your money but I would stay clear of Hayes and Hillingdon 

Scotbot

There is no chance of you  beating the SDLT deadline now as Xmas is coming and conveyancing is taking longer than normal. Don't rush, visit the areas and spend some time trying the commutes out.

G3ralt

kishoregupta said:

Thank you so much for all your responses. Maidenhead is how far we were prepared to go out of London but one thing that concerns me is the raising rail fare and how much it could cost to get to London if we were to commute every day for work which we don't do at the moment. Coming into London driving is not an option due to parking issues etc. 
How are areas such as West Drayton, Iver, Hayes? we don't have kids yet but we will hopefully have our family in this house, looking for an area with a good community, safety. Most of our friends live in the Northwest of London. 
We found houses that match our criteria in Hayes, Egham(not great public transport), Iver, Uxbridge, West Drayton. Just going by how we like a house to be and not the locality or etc. 

@k@kishoregupta I have lived in both Reading and West Drayton and you are right, commute cost from Reading/Maidenhead to London can be significant. Comparing the house prices/travel cost balance I thought Twyford was better value than both Reading and Maidenhead. I did not like West Drayton/Uxbridge for its locality but think that Iver is better (much greener, less congested etc.). Another area you might want to check out is near Guildford (although house prices may be high, not sure if higher than Maidenhead)
One other point you might want to consider is that whether you want to live somewhere closer to either workplaces, i.e. inside London fare zones or Reading itself so that one completely saves on travel cost or be in a place from where both need to travel and how would these options compare in terms of travel time and cost.

newsgroupmonkey_

Having lived in both Langley and Burnham, they were absolutely fine. There are areas of Slough that I wouldn't want to live in, but most of it is nowhere near as bad as people make out.

Even the so-called "dodgy areas" around Britwell, there are actually some nice houses around the area (sorry Britwell dwellers, you are Britwell, even if you pretend you live in Burnham or Farnham Royal - if you're not Bucks, you're Slough, Berks!)

I've lived around the country. There are areas of Hertfordshire that I'd rather not live in than Slough if I'm honest.

Agree with the poster above about Iver - it's a great place. Not cheap. I lived in Colnbrook a while and there are plenty of large villages around that area too.

There are also some not so nice areas of Reading.

West Drayton is the same. One of the issues you have with all around Uxbridge, West Drayton and so on is that much of the work revolves around the airport, so you often find a lot of traffic at odd times of the day. Plus the area of Yiewsley my Grandma lived in, there were a lot of properties that were often empty - owned by pilots and so on.

I'd heavily recommend doing some "ground research". I found when we moved up to Bedfordshire, as we didn't know the area, I would visit at different times of the day and night. We also spoke to people who lived there - try being specific about an estate even on a forum like this and gauging people's reactions. We also spent a few nights in a hotel.